


Inner apocalypse

by mariluu



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Child Abuse, Mausoleum, No Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26259199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariluu/pseuds/mariluu
Summary: The children never were extraordinary, the kids knew, Reginald didn't. He was completely sure he was training superheroes in order to prevent the end of the times, but society didn't understand that and he was lucid enough as to know they would take his soldiers away if they knew about his...methods. That's why he is forced to raise the children in a hidden house in the middle of nowhere. Everything works out as planned until the day Number 5 walks through the front door and never comes back and suddenly the FBI is involved.--------About the Criminal Minds side of the story, there shouldn't be anything in the text that spoils the series, I chose that season just in case, but i just wanted to include the characters that I liked the most, not their story. Yet again, they don't appear in the first chapter so I'll update this if needed. For now, it doesn't matter if you dont know the series, they're just names.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	Inner apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I should finish a story before starting another one. Well, now you know me a little more. I start imagining a lot of things and big worlds and stories and soon enough get out of ideas or get bored and jump to another. Still, I'll try to write more often, as now I can do so on my mobile phone, so its easier than using the computer. Whatever, enjoy. I did.

All they knew was the house. That big, cold, sad house. They weren't allowed outside, even though all they could see through the windows and across the garden was dead silence and fields upon fields upon mountains. 

All they knew was their training. Training to improve and control some powers they were certain didn't exist. At least most of them knew. Number one still forced himself to the limit everyday trying to reach his father's insanely high expectations, somehow trying to prove he wasn't lying about his super strength. Always the loyal. The others knew better. The only mystery was Number 4, who sweared he could see all those ghosts their father always talked about. Number three and seven didn't believe him, knowing him it was just a call for attention; two, one and six did (although for different reasons) and five didn't care. Truth was, though, that the kid would sometimes stare at things that weren't there, talk to them even! Sometimes he also had trouble listening to them, as if it was really loud in the room. He said they were ghosts, what else could it be? His father had assured him they were and there wasn't any other explanation in the books Number 6 and 5 had read so far so he had no choice other than believing it.

Either way, powers believed or not, all siblings shared a mutual feeling regarding training. It was pure torture. One always spent his days on the gym, lifting more weigth than any adult should. Two had to throw knives until they reached the target. Sometimes the target was alive and moving, sometimes the obstacles to avoid were his siblings. Three would make them do embarrasing and mostly silly things. On bad days father would make them do dangerous tricks or even hurt themselves (Four was ordered to fall down the stairs once and broke his jaw). They would always follow through, the consequences of not doing so being worse for everyone. It was easier to pretend, less painful.

Three still remembers the day she knowingly went against his father's wishes, remembers the punishment, remembers that she would do it again. 

The big, empty room was only lit by three small lamps in the ceiling. This time there were only 4 and 2, luckily. As always, his father wrote down the first order and let her read. Seconds passed in silence. No one moved. Her now pale face read the order again and again, hoping the letters would suddenly change. When they didn't she looked up to his siblings, then back at the paper and finally at his father, who nodded with a frown of disappointment. Letting a tear flow down her cheek and avoiding eye contact, she spoke. 

\- I heard a rummor that you kissed.

The words were almost a whisper but their meaning was clear for everyone. Their reactions were alike. They both froze, eyes big and scared. Four was the first one to cry. Two tried to calm him down but couldn't control his shaking hands and trembling voice. Father was getting impatience and so let them know. Four then closed his puffy eyes and waited for it to be over. Two was at a lose, with his hands on his brother's shoulders and his eyes wondering between her, father and four. Then, as if finding the answer, he calmed down, gently hold Four's face with his hands and quickly turned it to one side and kissed his cheek. The other kid opened his eyes surprised of the feeling and looked with awe at his smarter brother. Three, who hadn't been able to look away, let out a shaky breath in relief. The children felt mentally exhausted already, but his father didn't notice nor care, so not even a minute later, another piece of paper was being given for her to read. When she did, the world stopped again, this time filling her chest with a heavy feeling, much heavier than any weigth Number 1 could ever hope to lift, and all she could think was...

-No, no, no, no, no. I'm not doing it. I won't. - rationally, she knew she had no real power over his siblings. She also knew Two wouldn't do that to anyone, even if it meant punishment for all of them, but logic didn't seem to work right now with her panicking mind.

Of course, there was punishment and Three wasn't seen for a whole week after that. She couldn't talk for another two, yet never told anyone what was written in that paper and father never tried to cross that line again so she counted it as a win.

Four's training was lonely, on his own, yet it was the loudest. Father would lock him in the mausoleum behind the house for endless hours, though lately it had stated turning into endless days. Tecnically, only darkness could hurt him, yet he always screamed like he was being murdered...continuously and uninterruptedly. No one could sleep on those nights. Crying and unintelligible pleas would be heard most of the time from the outside -where 4 was- to their rooms, no matter the distance between those two places, and they grew used to it, but sometimes they would get full sentences, begging for someone, anyone to let him out, swearing that he wasn't scared, that he would be a good boy. Everyone could hear him, but were helpless. If someone left the room their father would know, the lights of the cameras in their rooms were a cruel remainder. All of them quietly agreed that the worse shout to listen consisted in just one word. Their numbers. Because that was a personal failure. That was directed to them, their little sibling asking for their help and them pushing the pillow just a little bit tighter around their ears to ignore it. That's how they dealt with the first half of their brother's training. After several hours of screaming for forgiveness and help, even Four realized no one was coming and so the receiver of the screams stopped being on the outside and started coming from the inside. Shouts for the ghost to stop, for them to JUST SHUT UP SHUP UP PLEASE and later, pleadings for them to stay away and don't touch him and stop screaming and help help HELP.

When the nightmare was finally over and he was allowed to leave, he still had to deal with little reminders in the form of dark bruises and tearing marks all over his arms and face. Four blamed the ghosts, but they knew better, if only for the blood on his nails. Every time he came out of that place he was missing a bit of himself. He became more quiet, the bruises under his eyes grew darker, his eyes more tired...they were scared he would leave one day as a corpse himself and never switch back to the inocent sweet kid they knew and loved.

Father was delirious. His convictions and mental inestability blinded him from the reality in their trainings, for failure was the only word to describe them all, that should have been obvious to anyone else, yet their father never wrote down that word on his diaries. If Number 1 couldn't lift a sofa over his head it meant more training was needed. If Number 5 couldn't disappear and reappear somewhere else, he was lacking intelligence and running skills. He always compared tearing the space to a race. He had to run, outmatch the nature trying to make him follow their rules or something like that. For that reason, he usually found himself sprinting until exhaustion and then more around the manon. Only after fainting or throwing up would his father allow him inside for his studies on time travelling and physics and maths about teleportation. It didn't matter to his father that it never worked out. 

It was shocking how his father came up with their powers, really. How could his paranoid mind set that six's powers should be a monster inside him that could and would brutally kill everything and everyone. They couldn't blame their brother for being scared. Six was a quiet and smart kid. He never fought any of his siblings and was friends with everyone. He even cried in silence, as if his voice had been stolen by the horrors of his training. No one knew what really happened in that small, red room. Not even Father, too scared to be present. They only knew that two living beings entered and only one left, so they got an idea and, of course, tried to help.

Four still remembers his school days. It was fun, all together on a room in the second floor with mom teaching them about weapons and fighting and maths! He hated maths but 5 liked it a lot. And 6 liked reading, although the books he liked better were about the outside world and father didn't like him reading those that much. They graduated with 7 years old and then started training. Training had to be supervised by dad so he dedicated each day on a single kid, seven children for seven days of the week. Six was Saturday. But the fact that training was a whole day thing didn't mean it couldn't last longer, like in the case of Number 4. 

During the first years of this new rutine, Six would look for 4 on Sundays and tell him what animal his father had made him kill that week. Because that was it, he had to kill them in order to get out of the room. At first it was only bugs and other small insects. Their small size didn't help with the blame. The worst part was that he was alone, no one was there to order him to kill, to force him, yet he eventually had to do it. Either be it for hunger or thirst or panic or whatever. In the end they would all die at his hands. When the animals started to become bigger and he started to gain injures and too many traumas to keep going, Number 5 gave him a pocket knife and told him to hide it from father and use it instead. It made things easier, it didn't help at all. Now they were usually bunnies and chickens (his father stopped using rabid dogs after he almost died once), so his siblings would usually help him steal and hide one already dead from the kitchen. 3 would be the one to spy their father and discover what animal would be that week. It was One's idea. That way on Saturdays he could carry it under his clothes when he was forced on the room and place it on the floor as a substitute. The rest of the time was spent trying to convince the still living animal to hide without attacking him in order to fool his father. Then, while dad wrote down his timing and level of destruction, they would sneak and free it from the garden. On those moments, Number Six's smile would reach his eyes and the pain in his chest blaming so many deaths on him would let him breath for once, everything bad would fade away and they would believe themselves heroes for the first time. That awesome feeling would last until they had to go back inside, then the dream shattered and reality took its place.

Number 7 didn't mind her training. She just had to break or change things. His siblings helped her sometimes. For example, when his father ordered her to break several glasses set on a table on the other side of the corridor, Number 2 used a slingshot and peebles to make it look like she was using her mind. Or another time, when he wanted her to use the sound of the radio to create a wave of energy around her. All the numbers tied threats to the back of some furniture around her and made them fall at the same time. Her power was easy and sometimes fun to fake and her father believed every second of it. 

The trick was in knowing what he had planned for the following days or next week, which was usually easy to predict as he not only told them about it, but also repeated himself every few weeks, as if he was out of ideas or just rebooted himself like the emotionless robot he definitely was. 

Mom was anything like him. She was loving, caring and her cooking was out of this world. She helped 2 with his slutter, kissed them goodnight and told them everything was going to be alright. She treated them when they were sick and healed their injuries. The only thing she couldn't do was proceed against their father's will. She wouldn't let 4 out no matter how much he cried, she wouldn't let 5 rest and drink water until he collapsed, she wouldn't stop dad from adding another weight on 1 even when he was already trembling from the effort. She would only smile and console them afterwards, offering love and treats but never attempting to stop the source of their pain.

Then there was Pogo. He was a monkey, would say Four. He was a chimpanzee, would correct Five and Six. They didn't see him often, always trapped in their father's office. It wasn't unusual hearing their father talking to him through the door. They were friends. Five said it wasn't normal but they only had the books to prove it. 

And so the years passed and they learned better ways to fool the adult, small tricks to help each other out. Number Three got Number Four a lantern. Four, Seven and Five emptied every drawer of One's training furnitures and even glued the back of books to the glass and give 5 the rest of the now broken books to make it seem like the glass-covered shelf was still full. Six and Three covered the wall of Two's training room with magnets so it wouldn't hit their siblings and they used ketchup to touch the area closest to the knife and fake an injury. Later on, Five and Six would read about an easy recipe on how to do fake blood more credibly than using mashed tomato. 

They were holding on, together. The seven of them. Five said seven was a golden number and that dad was probably obsessed with it. They didn't deny it. In fact, when they were feeling brave enough, they tested it out. Setting six apples on a plate and seven bananas on another, making bets on what would he choose, trying to be kids in an environment that forced them to be soldiers. 

And so the days were spent like that. Pretending, working, crying, but also laughting and making pranks. Eventually the weeks repeated themselves and the days blurred out, always the same. It seemed like nothing would ever change. But then it did. 

It happend a Saturday. The hours felt longer than usual, more tiring. Number 4 had came back from the mausoleum that morning and was shaking in the sofa while Two covered him in blankets and mom made them both hot chocolate. One and Three were probably somewhere doing whatever and Five and Seven were helping Six prepare for training.

Yeah, the day didn't seem to end. Number 6 had been in training for half a day now, which was weird, because he was getting better at convincing animals to hide in his uniform, whatever it's his method.

Hours went by, dinner was getting closer, no one was worried. Four and Two still on the sofa, the last reading a book out loud for the other boy, trying not to stutter. The others lost somewhere in the huge house. 

Soon enough the bell that indicated it was food time - dinner, Four, it's called dinner- rang and everyone left what they were doing and went to the food table - agh, Four, you know what? whatever - and stood behind the chairs, waiting for father. 

A few minutes later, they were still missing Number 6 and father. Everyone got nervious, they knew Six had training but...they all looked into each other's eyes looking for answer, but no one knew a thing. Then they heard steps approaching and saw father, with his pocker face and fancy mustache, getting to the table and indicating them to start eating. They all sat down but no one ate. One was already opening his mouth to ask where Six was when a noise on his right stopped him. When he turned, he saw Six sitting down with his head down in embarrasment for being late. He apologyzed and everyone started eating, more at ease. 

Then suddenly, in the middle of the silence that always surrounded that table, Number Five stood up and stabbed the knife on the wood. He then started talking about time traveling, assuring he was ready. Dad didn't think the same. A small fight between father and son started and ended quickly, and Five, screaming he WAS ready, left the table. They heard as the front door opened and closed and then silence. 

\- Sir, shouldn't we look for him? He can get hurt out there. - asked mom with worried eyes but gentle, unbothered smile. 

-No, there's no use. He probably already jumped through time. That arrogant brat. He will soon realise that time travelling is nothing like space travelling. I'll tell Pogo to start counting, we need to register how long does it take him to learn how to come back. Grace, inform me as soon as he returns to this house. Said that, children, I hope this lesson has taught you something about discipline. From now on, Fridays will be a team training day. And now, continue eating. 

The first time everything changed they had just turned 7 years old and starting training for the first time. The second time it happened they had just stopped being 7 siblings and starting a plan that could, hopefully, set them free. 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope I got you at the end. I really wanted to stress you all into thinking I would kill little sweet Benny boy.  
> I know that sounds like I'm a terrible person, but whatever, deal with it. It was fun to write. I have the next chapter already in my head and will try to order my ideas in the near future. Also, I need to practice my english for an exam sooo yeah. I'm not good with dialogue. I usually forget it exists and prefer to just write it from another perspective so, yeah, sorry about that.  
> Another thing, if you know a synonimous of "training" that would fit please tell me, I suffered a lot because of that.  
> See you


End file.
